


Sharing Grief

by Telaryn



Series: The Tale of Eliot Spencer and Ellen Harvelle [11]
Category: Leverage, Supernatural
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot asks Ellen to share her memories of her late husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing Grief

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=angst_bingo)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=angst_bingo)**angst_bingo** 's Round 3, for the prompt "memories".

“Tell me about Bill.”

Ellen couldn’t have explained to anyone’s satisfaction how she’d known today would be the day Eliot would finally ask about her late husband. The sun was setting over the trees at the edge of her property, and they were curled up together on the porch lounge chair Eliot had brought home that morning secured in the bed of his truck.

“Hush,” he’d said when she’d come out to see what he’d dragged home. “It matches what you’ve already got, and I like it.”

She immediately assured him she wasn’t making fun of him, but Ellen couldn’t stop grinning as she helped him wrangle the piece off the truck and carry it up to a place on her front porch. There was no way he could have known that this particular part of the set had been a casualty of budget compromise back when she and Bill had first been married.

 _”We’ll save up for it,”_ he’d promised, after laying out very calmly and practically why it made sense to wait on getting the lounge. He’d never come out and said that he didn’t understand why she wanted it – which was ultimately why Ellen had let him have that one.

“He was a good man,” she said at last. “You would have liked him.”

Eliot’s arms tightened briefly around her, and he kissed her hair. “I know he had great taste in women.” There was a moment of silence, then he said, “And don’t roll your eyes – I’m allowed to say cheesy romantic things to you, dammit!”

Since she’d been on the verge of doing just that – taking advantage of the fact that she wasn’t looking at him at the moment – Ellen couldn’t help laughing. “You are such a troublemaker,” she chided, twisting around until she could see his face.

His expression was serious, but there was a light in his blue eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

Ellen studied him for a long moment. Eliot was a hard man to figure out sometimes, although she had to admit she wasn’t at all tired of the challenge he presented. “Why now, Cowboy?” she asked, her tone turning serious as well. He was doing his best not to pressure her into telling him what he wanted to know, but Ellen sensed immediately that whatever his reasons, getting her answer was important to him.

His shoulder twitched in a sort of half-shrug. “Seems like the right time to ask,” he said, reaching up and lightly brushing his fingertips against her cheek. Humming with pleasure, Ellen leaned into his touch as he traced the edge of her ear, then skimmed his palm down the side of her throat, ending with his hand cupping the back of her neck. Arching up, he tightened his hold on her and kissed her so thoroughly Ellen was more than a little light-headed by the time they came up for air.

“Of course it also seemed like the right time to do _that_ ,” he admitted.

Ellen’s answering smile was lazy and pleased. “Never a bad time to do that.” After a moment though, she settled back into the warm hollow of the cushion beside him, pillowing her head on his chest again. Eliot shifted to accommodate her, then began idly combing his fingers through her hair. Ellen slipped a hand under his shirt, suddenly craving the feel of his skin under hers. Physical contact had never been a big deal in her marriage, but these days Ellen occasionally wondered if it was possible to become addicted to touching someone.

Silence stretched between them, long and thick enough that Ellen knew anyone else would have been either pushing her to answer or offering to withdraw the question. Eliot did neither, and in a strange way his calm determination to give her as much time as she needed to make up her mind seemed to leech away the last of her reluctance to speak.

“I was nineteen when Bill and I married,” she said at last, with a small sigh of resignation. “Already three months pregnant, but the Roadhouse was a solid income even back in those days.” Bill had started teaching her how to work the bar once she began showing, pointing out that it gave her the luxury of sitting down occasionally – something waitressing never did. Ellen always suspected that it was also a quiet way for him to protect her and their unborn child from occasionally rowdy patrons, but she’d never asked and that was something Bill never would have admitted otherwise.

“After I got the hang of slinging drinks,” she continued, “he started teaching me about the rest of it. I always knew he was gonna go back to hunting once the baby was old enough. He’d never been the type to just sit by and let other people hunt the monsters.” Ellen felt the corners of her eyes ache, and silently cursed herself for weakness. “Having Jo just meant we had a personal stake in doing our part.” She forced herself to finish, in spite of the tears now blurring her vision.  
*************************  
Her fingers flexed briefly against his stomach, and even though he couldn’t see her face, Eliot knew she was silently crying. Staying his hand for a moment, he kissed her hair again before resuming. “How old was Jo when he went back on the road?”

“Four,” Ellen said, and now Eliot could hear traces of grief in her voice. “We’d meant to wait until she started school, but we’d taken up being friends with Sam and Dean’s daddy by then, and when John blew into town practically begging for Bill’s help to take out this demon…” Her voice trailed off.

Eliot had known Sam and Dean Winchester’s father had been a hunter, but nobody at the Roadhouse seemed to have anything positive to say about John Winchester, so he’d largely left the subject alone. “Dean was already used to looking out for his brother, and both the boys liked being able to play with somebody new, so it wasn’t any big deal for me to keep them while Bill and John hit the road.” She chuckled softly. “I was so mad at him for doing it though – lettin’ John manipulate him like that.”

“But you didn’t say anything?”

He felt Ellen shrug her shoulders. “No point. We would have taken the boys in regardless, but none of the other hunters wanted to back John up on this.” She fell silent for a moment, and Eliot could feel how heavy the memory was weighing on her. “’sides, if I’d unloaded on him, the last words Bill and I ever got to say to each other would have been ugly. Nobody deserves that.”

He agreed, but Eliot couldn’t help saying, “I can’t imagine you choosing not to speak your mind on something.”

She turned in his arms then, until their eyes met again. “I pick my battles, Cowboy. Very few thoughts in my head are so golden they deserve to be heard no matter what.” She smiled ruefully. “Now that doesn’t mean I didn’t tell John to get the hell out of my sight and threaten to keep his kids when he came back…”

“Way people talk about the man, you probably would have been doing them a favor,” Eliot mused, pushing her hair behind her shoulders.

Ellen sighed. “John meant well. But yeah – I wasn’t the first person he’d heard that threat from. Bobby Singer delivered it to him over the barrel of a sawed off shotgun once.” Eliot watched, fascinated, as she stopped herself from getting distracted and came back on point. “But you didn’t ask me about John Winchester, did you?”

“Was he able to bring a body back?” Eliot didn’t answer her question directly, because it didn’t need answering.

Tears welled in Ellen’s eyes again, and she nodded. “It’s the only reason I didn’t kill John myself when he told me the story. He knew I’d need to see for myself, so one day I could forgive him for doing what needed to be done.” Eliot listened to her spin the rest of the tale. The demon hadn’t finished Bill off – choosing to leave him instead hovering on the brink of death and in excruciating pain. It had fallen to John to end things, which he’d done with a single, expertly placed gunshot to the head.

 _He was a soldier,_ Eliot remembered – recalling an offhand remark Sam had made a while back. His own experiences meant that he could follow John’s logic perfectly, but knowing why wouldn’t have made it any easier on Ellen.

She was crying again by the time she told him the last of it – confessing to Jo only recently the truth she’d softened for the tiny girl who’d lost her daddy too soon. Eliot pulled her down beside him then, steadying and soothing her with words and hands; letting her know as best he could that she was safe with him.

They stayed like that, wrapped around each other, until the sun finished its journey below the horizon and darkness spread across their world.


End file.
